Posted at ZeroHedge: History of CBanks in 5 minutes

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Island_Dweller

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Not sure if averyone here reads ZeroHedge or not, so I thought I would post this comment from a poster called resurger (hope he doesn't mind) cause I thought it was awesome and you might enjoy it too.

#1 As a result of the Seven Years War with France, King George III of England was deeply in debt to the central bankers of England.

#2 In an attempt to raise revenue, King George tried to heavily tax the colonies in America.

#3 In 1763, Benjamin Franklin was asked by the Bank of England why the colonies were so prosperous, and this was his response….





“That is simple. In the colonies we issue our own money. It is called Colonial Script. We issue it in proper proportion to the demands of trade and industry to make the products pass easily from the producers to the consumers.

In this manner, creating for ourselves our own paper money, we control its purchasing power, and we have no interest to pay to no one.”





#4 The Currency Act of 1764 ordered the American Colonists to stop printing their own money. Colonial script (the money the colonists were using at the time) was to be exchanged at a two-to-one ratio for “notes” from the Bank of England.

#5 Later, in his autobiography, Benjamin Franklin explained the impact that this currency change had on the colonies….





“In one year, the conditions were so reversed that the era of prosperity ended, and a depression set in, to such an extent that the streets of the Colonies were filled with unemployed.”





#6 In fact, Benjamin Franklin stated unequivocally in his autobiography that the power to issue currency was the primary reason for the Revolutionary War….





“The colonies would gladly have borne the little tax on tea and other matters had it not been that England took away from the colonies their money, which created unemployment and dissatisfaction. The inability of the colonists to get power to issue their own money permanently out of the hands of George III and the international bankers was the prime reason for the Revolutionary War.”





#7 Gouverneur Morris, one of the authors of the U.S. Constitution, solemnly warned us in 1787 that we must not allow the bankers to enslave us….





“The rich will strive to establish their dominion and enslave the rest. They always did. They always will… They will have the same effect here as elsewhere, if we do not, by (the power of) government, keep them in their proper spheres.”





#8 Unfortunately, those warning us about the dangers of a central bank did not prevail. After an aborted attempt to establish a central bank in the 1780s, the First Bank of the United States was established in 1791. Alexander Hamilton (who had close ties to the Rothschild banking family) cut a deal under which he would support the move of the nation’s capital to Washington D.C. in exchange for southern support for the establishment of a central bank.

#9 George Washington signed the bill creating the First Bank of the United States on April 25, 1791. It was given a 20 year charter.

#10 In the first five years of the First Bank of the United States, the U.S. government borrowed 8.2 million dollars and prices rose by 72 percent.

#11 The opponents of central banking were not pleased. In 1798, Thomas Jefferson said the following….





“I wish it were possible to obtain a single amendment to our Constitution – taking from the federal government their power of borrowing.”





#12 In 1811, the charter of the First Bank of the United States was not renewed.

#13 One year later, the War of 1812 erupted. The British and the Americans were at war once again.

#14 In 1814, the British captured and burned Washington D.C., but the Americans subsequently experienced key victories at New York and at New Orleans.

#15 The Treaty of Ghent, officially ending the war, was ratified by the U.S. Senate on February 16th, 1815 and was ratified by the British on February 18th, 1815.

#16 In 1816, another central bank was created. The Second Bank of the United States was established and was given a 20 year charter.

#17 Andrew Jackson, who became president in 1828, was determined to end the power of the central bankers over the United States.

#18 In fact, in 1832, Andrew Jackson’s re-election slogan was “JACKSON and NO BANK!”

#19 On July 10th, 1832 President Jackson said the following about the danger of a central bank….





“It is not our own citizens only who are to receive the bounty of our government. More than eight millions of the stock of this bank are held by foreigners… is there no danger to our liberty and independence in a bank that in its nature has so little to bind it to our country? … Controlling our currency, receiving our public moneys, and holding thousands of our citizens in dependence… would be more formidable and dangerous than a military power of the enemy.”





#20 In 1835, President Jackson completely paid off the U.S. national debt. He is the only U.S. president that has ever been able to accomplish this.

#21 President Jackson vetoed the attempt to renew the charter of the Second Bank of the United States in 1836.

#22 Richard Lawrence attempted to shoot Andrew Jackson, but he survived. It is alleged that Lawrence said that “wealthy people in Europe” had put him up to it.

#23 The Civil War was another opportunity for the central bankers of Europe to get their hooks into America. In fact, it is claimed that Abraham Lincoln actually contacted Rothschild banking interests in Europe in an attempt to finance the war effort. Reportedly, the Rothschilds were demanding very high interest rates and Lincoln balked at paying them.

#24 Instead, Lincoln pushed through the Legal Tender Act of 1862. Under that act, the U.S. government issued $449,338,902 of debt-free money.

#25 This debt-free money was known as “Greenbacks” because of the green ink that was used.

#26 The central bankers of Europe were not pleased. The following quote appeared in the London Times in 1865….





“If this mischievous financial policy, which has its origin in North America, shall become endurated down to a fixture, then that Government will furnish its own money without cost. It will pay off debts and be without debt. It will have all the money necessary to carry on its commerce. It will become prosperous without precedent in the history of the world. The brains, and wealth of all countries will go to North America. That country must be destroyed or it will destroy every monarchy on the globe.”





#27 Abraham Lincoln was shot dead by John Wilkes Booth on April 14th, 1865.

#28 After the Civil War, all money in the United States was created by bankers buying U.S. government bonds in exchange for bank notes.

#29 James A. Garfield became president in 1881, and he was a staunch opponent of the banking powers. In 1881 he said the following….





“Whoever controls the volume of money in our country is absolute master of all industry and commerce…and when you realize that the entire system is very easily controlled, one way or another, by a few powerful men at the top, you will not have to be told how periods of inflation and depression originate.”





#30 President Garfield was shot about two weeks later by Charles J. Guiteau on July 2nd, 1881. He died from medical complications on September 19th, 1881.

#31 In 1906, the U.S. stock market was setting all kinds of records. However, in March 1907 the U.S. stock market absolutely crashed. It is alleged that elite New York bankers were responsible.

#32 In addition, in 1907 J.P. Morgan circulated rumors that a major New York bank had gone bankrupt. This caused a massive run on the banks. In turn, the banks started recalling all of their loans. The panic of 1907 resulted in a congressional investigation that ended up concluding that a central bank was “necessary” so that these kinds of panics would never happen again.

#33 It took a few years, but the international bankers finally got their central bank in 1913.

#34 Congress voted on the Federal Reserve Act on December 22nd, 1913 between the hours of 1:30 AM and 4:30 AM.

#35 A significant portion of Congress was either sleeping at the time or was already at home with their families celebrating the holidays.

#36 The president that signed the law that created the Federal Reserve, Woodrow Wilson, later sounded like he very much regretted the decision when he wrote the following….





“A great industrial nation is controlled by its system of credit. Our system of credit is privately concentrated. The growth of the nation, therefore, and all our activities are in the hands of a few men … [W]e have come to be one of the worst ruled, one of the most completely controlled and dominated, governments in the civilized world–no longer a government by free opinion, no longer a government by conviction and the vote of the majority, but a government by the opinion and the duress of small groups of dominant men.”





#37 Between 1921 and 1929 the Federal Reserve increased the U.S. money supply by 62 percent. This was the time known as “The Roaring 20s”.

#38 In addition, highly leveraged “margin loans” became very common during this time period.

#39 In October 1929, the New York bankers started calling in these margin loans on a massive scale. This created the initial crash that launched the Great Depression.

#40 Rather than expand the money supply in response to this crisis, the Federal Reserve really tightened it up. #41 In fact, it was reported the the U.S. money supply contracted by eight billion dollars between 1929 and 1933. That was an extraordinary amount of money in those days. Over one-third of all U.S. banks went bankrupt. The New York bankers were able to buy up other banks and all kinds of other assets for pennies on the dollar.
 
I couldn't help noticing that most Presidential assassinations or attempted assassinations were toward presidents that had nasty things to say against bankers.......hmmm

and although resurger didn't mention JFK I think you can safely add him to the list.
 
Island, thanks for this info. It is always good to review how we got to where are are now.

Here is some additional fascinating information on the history of banking and money dating even a bit further back:


http://www.xat.org/xat/moneyhistory.html

MEDIEVAL ENGLAND (1000 - 1100 A.D.)

Here we find goldsmith's offering to keep other people's gold and silver safe in their vaults, and in return people walking away with a receipt for what they have left there.

These paper receipts soon became popular for trade as they were less heavy to carry around than gold and silver coins.

After a while, the goldsmith's must have noticed that only a small percentage of their depositor's ever came in to demand their gold at any one time. So cleverly the goldsmith's made out some receipts for gold which didn't even exist, and then they loaned it out to earn interest.

A nod and a wink amongst themselves, they incorporated this practice into the banking system. They even gave it a name to make it seem more acceptable, christening the practice 'Fractional Reserve Banking' which translates to mean, lending out many times more money than you have assets on deposit.

Today banks are allowed to loan out at least ten times the amount they actually are holding, so while you wonder how they get rich charging you 11% interest, it's not 11% a year they make on that amount but actually 110%.


THE TALLY STICKS (1100 - 1854)

King Henry the First produced sticks of polished wood, with notches cut along one edge to signify the denominations. The stick was then split full length so each piece still had a record of the notches.

The King kept one half for proof against counterfeiting, and then spent the other half into the market place where it would continue to circulate as money.

Because only Tally Sticks were accepted by Henry for payment of taxes, there was a built in demand for them, which gave people confidence to accept these as money.

He could have used anything really, so long as the people agreed it had value, and his willingness to accept these sticks as legal tender made it easy for the people to agree. Money is only as valuable as peoples faith in it, and without that faith even today's money is just paper.

The tally stick system worked really well for 726 years. It was the most successful form of currency in recent history and the British Empire was actually built under the Tally Stick system, but how is it that most of us are not aware of its existence?

Perhaps the fact that in 1694 the Bank of England at its formation attacked the Tally Stick System gives us a clue as to why most of us have never heard of them. They realised it was money outside the power of the money changers, (the very thing King Henry had intended).

What better way to eliminate the vital faith people had in this rival currency than to pretend it simply never existed and not discuss it. That seems to be what happened when the first shareholder's in the Bank of England bought their original shares with notched pieces of wood and retired the system. You heard correctly, they bought shares. The Bank of England was set up as a privately owned bank through investors buying shares. Even the Banks resent nationalisation is not what it at first may appear, as its independent resources unceasingly multiply and dividends continue to be produced for its shareholder's.

These investors, who's names were kept secret, were meant to invest one and a quarter million pounds, but only three quarters of a million was received when it was chartered in 1694.

It then began to lend out many times more than it had in reserve, collecting interest on the lot.

This is not something you could just impose on people without preparation. The money changers needed to created the climate to make the formation of this private concern seem acceptable.

Here's how they did it.

With King Henry VIII relaxing the Usury Laws in the 1500's, the money changers flooded the market with their gold and silver coins becoming richer by the minute.

The English Revolution of 1642 was financed by the money changers backing Oliver Cromwell's successful attempt to purge the parliament and kill King Charles. What followed was 50 years of costly wars. Costly to those fighting them and profitable to those financing them.

So profitable that it allowed the money changers to take over a square mile of property still known as the City of London, which remains one of the three main financial centres in the world today.

The 50 years of war left England in financial ruin. The government officials went begging for loans from guess who, and the deal proposed resulted in a government sanctioned, privately owned bank which could produce money from nothing, essentially legally counterfeiting a national currency for private gain.

Now the politicians had a source from which to borrow all the money they wanted to borrow, and the debt created was secured against public taxes.

You would think someone would have seen through this, and realised they could produce their own money and owe no interest, but instead the Bank of England has been used as a model and now nearly every nation has a Central Bank with fractional reserve banking at its core.

These central banks have the power to take over a nations economy and become that nations real governing force. What we have here is a scam of mammoth proportions covering what is actually a hidden tax, being collected by private concerns.

The country sells bonds to the bank in return for money it cannot raise in taxes. The bonds are paid for by money produced from thin air. The government pays interest on the money it borrowed by borrowing more money in the same way. There is no way this debt can ever be paid, it has and will continue to increase.

If the government did find a way to pay off the debt, the result would be that there would be no bonds to back the currency, so to pay the debt would be to kill the currency.

With its formation the Bank of England soon flooded Britain with money. With no quality control and no insistence on value for money, prices doubled with money being thrown in every direction.

One company was even offering to drain the Red Sea to find Egyptian gold lost when the sea closed in on their pursuit of Moses.

By1698 the national debt expanded from £1,250,000 to £16,000,000 and up went the taxes the debt was secured on.

As hard as it might be to believe, in times of economic upheaval, wealth is rarely destroyed and instead is often only transferred. And who benefits the most when money is scarce? You may have guessed. It's those controlling what everyone else wants, the money changer's.

When the majority of people are suffering through economic depression, you can be sure that a minority of people are continuing to get rich.

Even today the Bank of England expresses its determination to prevent the ups and downs of booms and depressions, yet there have been nothing but ups and downs since its formation with the British pound rarely being stable.

One thing however has been stable and that is the growing fortune of:


THE ROTHSCHILDS (1743)

A goldsmith named Amshall Moses Bower opened a counting house in Frankfurt Germany in 1743. He placed a Roman eagle on a red shield over the door prompting people to call his shop the Red Shield Firm pronounced in German as "Rothschild".

His son later changed his name to Rothschild when he inherited the business. Loaning money to individuals was all well and good but he soon found it much more profitable loaning money to governments and Kings. It always involved much bigger amounts, always secured from public taxes.

Once he got the hang of things he set his sights on the world by training his five sons in the art of money creation, before sending them out to the major financial centres of the world to create and dominate the central banking systems.

J.P. Morgan was thought by many to be the richest man in the world during the second world war, but upon his death it was discovered he was merely a lieutenant within the Rothschild empire owning only 19% of the J.P. Morgan Companies.

"There is but one power in Europe and that is Rothschild."
19th century French commentator 1

We will explore a little more about the richest family a little later, after we've had a look at:


1. Niall Ferguson, THE HOUSE OF ROTHSCHILD, Money's Prophets, 1798-1848


THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION (1764 - 1781)

By the mid 1700's Britain was at its height of power, but was also heavily in debt.

Since the creation of the Bank of England, they had suffered four costly wars and the total debt now stood at £140,000,000, (which in those days was a lot of money).

In order to make their interest payments to the bank, the British government set about a programme to try to raise revenues from their American colonies, largely through an extensive programme of taxation.

There was a shortage of material for minting coins in the colonies, so they began to print their own paper money, which they called Colonial Script. This provided a very successful means of exchange and also gave the colonies a sense of identity. Colonial Script was money provided to help the exchange of goods. It was debt free paper money not backed by gold or silver.

During a visit to Britain in 1763, The Bank of England asked Benjamin Franklin how he would account for the new found prosperity in the colonies. Franklin replied.

"That is simple. In the colonies we issue our own money. It is called Colonial Script. We issue it in proper proportion to the demands of trade and industry to make the products pass easily from the producers to the consumers.

In this manner, creating for ourselves our own paper money, we control its purchasing power, and we have no interest to pay to no one."
Benjamin Franklin 1

America had learned that the people's confidence in the currency was all they needed, and they could be free of borrowing debts. That would mean being free of the Bank of England.

In Response the world's most powerful independent bank used its influence on the British parliament to press for the passing of the Currency Act of 1764.

This act made it illegal for the colonies to print their own money, and forced them to pay all future taxes to Britain in silver or gold.

Here is what Franklin said after that.

"In one year, the conditions were so reversed that the era of prosperity ended, and a depression set in, to such an extent that the streets of the Colonies were filled with unemployed."
Benjamin Franklin

"The colonies would gladly have borne the little tax on tea and other matters had it not been that England took away from the colonies their money, which created unemployment and dissatisfaction. The inability of the colonists to get power to issue their own money permanently out of the hands of George III and the international bankers was the PRIME reason for the Revolutionary War."
Benjamin Franklin's autobiography

By the time the war began on 19th April 1775 much of the gold and silver had been taken by British taxation. They were left with no other choice but to print money to finance the war.

What is interesting here is that Colonial Script was actually working so well, it became a threat to the established economic system of the time.

The idea of issuing money as Franklin put it "in proper proportion to the demands of trade and industry" and not charging any interest, was not causing any problems or inflation. This unfortunately was alien to the Bank of England which only issued money for the sake of making a profit for its shareholder's.


1. Congressman Charles G. Binderup of Nebraska, Unrobing the Ghosts of Wall Street


THE BANK OF NORTH AMERICA (1781-1785)

If you can't beat them, join them, might well have been his argument when arms dealer, Robert Morris suggested he be allowed to set up a Bank of England style central bank in the USA in 1781.

Desperate for money, the $400,000 he proposed to deposit, to allow him to loan out many times that through fractional reserve banking, must have looked really attractive to the impoverished American Government.

Already spending the money they would be loaned, no one made a fuss when Robert Morris couldn't raise the deposit, and instead suggested he might use some gold, which had been loaned to America from France.

Once in, he simply used fractional reserve banking, and with the banks growing fortune he loaned to himself, and his friends the money to buy up all the remaining shares. The bank then began to loan out money multiplied by this new amount to eager politicians, who were probably too drunk with the new 'power cash' to notice or care how it was done.

The scam lasted five years until in 1785, with the value of American money dropping like a lead balloon. The banks charter didn't get renewed.

The shareholder's walking off with the interest did not go unnoticed by the governor.

"The rich will strive to establish their dominion and enslave the rest. They always did. They always will... They will have the same effect here as elsewhere, if we do not, by (the power of) government, keep them in their proper spheres."
Governor Morris 1


1. THE CONSTITUTIONAL CONVENTION OF 1787, 7/2


FIRST BANK OF THE UNITED STATES (1791-1811)

It worked once, it will work again. It's been six years. There are a lot of new hungry politicians. Let's give it a try. And so there it was, in 1791, the First Bank of the United States (BUS). Not only deceptively named to sound official, but also to take attention away from the real first bank which had been shut down.

Its initials however gave a clear indication that Americans were once again being taken for a ride. And true to its British model, the name of the investors was never revealed.

Having gotten away with it a second time, some of them probably wished Amshall Rothschild had picked a different time to make his pronouncement from his private central bank in Frankfurt.

"Let me issue and control a nation's money and I care not who writes the laws."
Mayer Amschel Rothschild, 1790

Not to worry, no one was listening, the American government borrowed 8.2 million dollars from the bank in the first 5 years and prices rose by 72%. This time round the money changer's had learned their lesson, they had guaranteed a twenty year charter.

The president, who could see an ever increasing debt, with no chance of ever paying back, had this to say.

"I wish it were possible to obtain a single amendment to our Constitution - taking from the federal government their power of borrowing."
Thomas Jefferson, 1798

While the independent press, who had not been bought off yet, called the scam "a great swindle, a vulture, a viper, and a cobra."

As with the real first bank, the government had been the only depositor to put up any real money, with the remainder being raised from loans the investors made to each other, using the magic of fractional reserve banking. When time came for renewal of the charter, the bankers were warning of bad times ahead if they didn't get what they wanted. The charter was not renewed.

Five month later Britain had attacked America and started the war of 1812.

Meanwhile a short time earlier, an independent Rothschild business, the Bank of France, was being looked upon with suspicion by none other than:


NAPOLEON (1803 - 1825)

He didn't trust the bank saying:

"When a government is dependent upon bankers for money, they and not the leaders of the government control the situation, since the hand that gives is above the hand that takes... Money has no motherland; financiers are without patriotism and without decency; their sole object is gain."
Napoleon Bonaparte, 1815

For both sides of a war to be loaned money from the same privately owned Central Bank is not unusual. Nothing generates debt like war. A Nation will borrow any amount to win. So naturally if the loser is kept going to the last straw in a vain hope of winning, then the more resources will be used up by the winning side before their victory is obtained more resources used, more loans taken out, more money made by the bankers; and even more amazing, the loans are usually given on condition that the victor pays the debts left by the loser.

In 1803, instead of borrowing from the bank, Napoleon sold territory west of the Mississippi to the 3rd President of the United States, Thomas Jefferson for 3 million dollars in gold; a deal known as the Louisiana Purchase.

Three million dollars richer, Napoleon quickly gathered together an army and set about conquering much of Europe.

Each place he went to, Napoleon found his opposition being financed by the Bank of England, making huge profits as Prussia, Austria and finally Russia all went heavily into debt trying to stop him.

Four years later, with the main French army in Russia, Nathan Rothschild took charge of a bold plan to smuggle a shipment of gold through France to finance an attack from Spain by the Duke of Wellington.

Wellington's attack from the south and other defeats eventually forced Napoleon into exile. However in 1815 he escaped from his banishment in Elba, an Island off the coast of Italy, and returned to Paris.

By March of that year Napoleon had equipped an army with the help of borrowed money from the Eubard Banking House of Paris.

With 74,000 French troops led by Napoleon, sizing up to meet 67,000 British and other European Troops 200 miles NE of Paris on June 18th 1815, it was a difficult one to call. Back in London, the real potential winner, Nathan Rothschild, was poised to strike in a bold plan to take control of the British stock market, the bond market, and possibly even the Bank of England.

Nathan, knowing that information is power, stationed his trusted agent named Rothworth near the battle field.

As soon as the battle was over Rothworth quickly returned to London, delivering the news to Rothschild 24 hours ahead of Wellington's courier.

A victory by Napoleon would have devastated Britain's financial system. Nathan stationed himself in his usual place next to an ancient pillar in the stock market.

This powerful man was not without observers as he hung his head, and began openly to sell huge numbers of British Government Bonds.

Reading this to mean that Napoleon must have won, everyone started to sell their British Bonds as well.

The bottom fell out of the market until you couldn't hardly give them away. Meanwhile Rothschild began to secretly buy up all the hugely devalued bonds at a fraction of what they were worth a few hours before.

In this way Nathan Rothschild captured more in one afternoon than the combined forces of Napoleon and Wellington had captured in their entire lifetime.

END OF PART1
PART2 CONTINUED AT

http://www.xat.org/xat/usury.html
 
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There is a very good & quite short documentary on Youtube called "The secret of OZ" by Bill Still,(he was attempting to run for 2012 elections - not a great attempt ;), but very good documentary). He is against the gold standard himself, arguing that gold can be hoarded by biggest players ( because of its scarcity), thus manipulated the same way as fiat currency.


Also "Money as a debt", & follow-up:

part II:


And this is quite short & to the point, and quite fun sometimes ("The american dream movie":


all are a good eye openers, in the respect of :snidely: Central Banks
 
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